Convergence: Contemplating Isa - the Rune of Ice

As I'm working on my December Convergence radio show, coming up this Sunday on Firefly Willows L*I*V*E!, I'm contemplating Isa, the norse rune that represents "ice".

Along with all the typical associations that come with Isa -- cold, slippery, brittle, dangerous -- a thought came to me this morning that I don't find in the literature; an aspect of Isa that is not mentioned. Ice - frozen water - is less dense than liquid water. So the transition from water to ice is actually an expansive one. It is also one that introduces a kind of order. An expanded, ordered matrix is formed in this transition.

This is the first time I have imagined that Isa represents an expanded, ordered state. A state of stillness, to be sure, but also expanded, and ordered. Mystically speaking, something, under the influence of Isa, becomes "lighter". What might that be? And what is released in this process?

This solid, expanded, ordered state is as natural as the "flow state" of water, just not as "comfortable" to our warm, flowing, sanguine bodies. An "edge state" for us, as human beings?

Expanded, and Ordered, and Still... Hmmm. Interesting.

What are your thoughts? Let's explore. Join me for Convergence this Sunday at 10:30 AM pacific time for more.

In the Beginning, There Was the Signal

Science's Digital Chickens Come Home (err...to the Library) to Roost

For those of you who know me well, you've probably heard some of my metaphysical and "deep physics" ideas about the structure of the universe.

Here's one of my favorites: The true fundamental building block of the universe is Information.

When you peer down, deeply down, into the fundamentals of matter (and energy) you find…nothing. Nothing concrete, that is. Quantum physics - the most successful theory in the history of the science* - tells us that elementary particles are not particles at all. The "Copenhagen Interpretation" (Neils Bohr & company) states that "there is no deep reality" beyond the illusion of the particles and waves (and they are illusions). Pretty weird.

I have always felt that there was something amiss with the Copenhagen Interpretation ("Gee, really?").

I've pondered this gap for a number of years, starting early in my career in the network technology business. Back then, I learned about something called "Information Theory" - actually the theory of how information (and how much information) can be stored or carried using certain technologies. And one part of it (the Nyquist Rate, for those who care) caught my attention, and looped me back to this problem of deep reality.

I got this crazy notion that deep reality, that which was beyond the illusory "material" world, was actually information. A probability wave is not an object, but an aspect of design, a blueprint so-to-speak. A field is not a "thing", but an expression of an effect (perhaps, of an "intent").

When you dig down deeply enough, you go beyond matter and quantized energy into a domain of description, of information. Of design. From there, one might say that all the blueprints of the Universe are stored in that mysterious vault often called the Akashic Records. Physicists just might agree.

For you science folks who are still with me, here's a snip from Wikipedia:

The Akashic Records (akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sky", "space" or "aether") is a term used in theosophy (and Anthroposophy) to describe a compendium of mystical knowledge encoded in a non-physical plane of existence. These records are described as containing all knowledge of human experience and the history of the cosmos.

The other day I saw an article in the Februay 2012 issue of Scientific American.  Craig Hogan and a crew at FermiLab is digging around in just this domain.

From the article,

"Physicists have, over the past couple of decades, uncovered profound insights into how the universe stores information - even going so far as to suggest that information, not matter and energy, constitutes the most basic unit of existence."

Ahhh, that feels good! And from here, the first words of the Gospel according to John make a whole lot more sense.

*Quantum Theory has never failed to accurately predict an experimental result (even when the predictions are so screwy that the physicists dread to discover that the universe actually works that way...)

Exertion vs. Effort

Exertion in the Presence of Disharmony

My life has been a long episode of "trying my hardest to achieve", no matter what the circumstances. Vacation? How do I get the most out of it? Relaxing massage? How do I harvest the optimum relaxation from the experience? Sleep? What kind of active dreaming, subconscious clearing, or astral projection work can be done tonight? 

You name it, I have developed a knack for turning any activity into a exercise in maximum extraction. I have such a habit of constantly "working" on something that there has been an unconscious part of myself that will actively create effort even when there is none. 

I realized this recently when I was driving to Firefly Willows. There was no hurry. The drive takes maybe five minutes. There was almost no traffic. And yet, I realized that there was this great force, this "pressure" that I felt that I was pushing against. I could feel it as if a big, inflated shape was pressing against me as I sat in the car. 

And I had constructed it out of nothing.

Why? 

Because it was something I could push against. I quickly dismissed it…and felt so strange that I lost an aspect of my equilibrium. There was nothing to push forward against, and it felt like I was falling (forward).

It was really odd.

I've struggled with the notions of "just being" and "just receiving" as a way of living because, although they're recommended by many mystical authorities, there is a part of me - the athlete/warrior part - that enjoys exertion. Heavy lifting. The application of force through the vehicle of the self. I'd have called this "making an effort" just a few days ago, but I think I just learned something this morning.

I do like to exert myself. It feels good. I've developed a capacity that I enjoy using, and feel strong when I do. But I noticed that I used the word "exertion" and "exert" as the thing I would miss, not "effort".

The question then had to be asked, "Are exertion and effort the same thing?" 

The dictionary was not helpful. There was something subtle to be felt here, a difference that I could not ignore. Exertion is something I do. Effort is something I do in the presence of...what? Resistance? 

On a Newtonian physics level, there is no exertion without effort, because there has to be something to "push" against. 

And still, I'm sure there's a profound difference. We don't live in a strictly Newtonian world (and certainly our spirits don't…). I know that I'm willing to exert myself. But I'm increasingly suspicious of effort. It seems dark, and heavy. It seems like, on a very deep level, there's something more to be examined. Does God exert him/herself? Or does God apply effort? Possibly the former. I doubt the latter.

Some thoughts:

When I play a sport like basketball, I'm experiencing resistance from the other players. But we have a mutual goal - the exploration and enjoyment of the game. So that's effort, but at another level its cooperative exertion.

When I'm climbing a mountain, I'm exerting myself. The resistance I experience is the force of gravity. maybe that makes it an effort, but it doesn't feel like one, because I welcome the force of gravity as, in essence, I welcome the other basketball players - without them, something would be missing.

So if I don't think of these things as "effort" (and resistance), then what DOES fall into the category of effort? (Is resistance always bad?)

Ugly things. Difficult things. Things like working a job I don't love, or driving in a traffic jam. Things like taking corporate money out of politics and stopping the rape of the environment. Anywhere that the exertion comes up against a darkness. 

So, OK, that's a judgement. Slippery ground for metaphysics, I confess. 

Maybe it's better to say that Effort is Exertion in the presence of Disharmony?

I think it's a continuum. Exertion flows into effort in the presence of an unenlightened player. And that player may well be myself.

I admit I'm still puzzled, because those word evoke very different feelings inside me.  Can you share your perspectives on Exertion vs. Effort?

Seven Billion Trails

What if each of us could speak without fear and listen without prejudice?

I was contemplating the course of life this morning. Of my father's life, in particular. He's now 88 years old. He still lives independently. He's an Italian immigrant, a child of the Great Depression, and fought in World War II. He experienced modest career success (modest because he was an educator, success because he was deeply admired and respected in his field). He experienced the joy of six children, and the tragedy of the death of one. He was the primary care-giver to my mentally disabled mother for eighteen years.

He has had a hard life, in my opinion. I saw the arc of his life like a trek up a craggy mountain face. Shimmering moments of beauty. Terrifying moments of danger. Many moments of fear.

He continues to climb, serving as a father and grandfather to a single mother my age and her eight-year-old son. He doesn't have to do this. And yet, he does.

The arc of his life has taken him on a path that has shaped his character. He really has no choice but to be who he is. And so, the path he walks is the path that he sees. 

The path that he sees is the path that his eyes and feet are adapted to. His choices are limited. Not uncomfortable, mind you. But limited.

I found myself asking "Why?" 

The answer was actually pretty simple. It's not a trail if you're not adapted to walk it. And it is, if you are. 

A gecko can walk up a vertical wall. Trail, or not a trail?

I look at my life. I am fifty. The path I have taken is so vastly different from my father's. Mine began when he was thirty eight. The terrain had changed by then (or had it?). 

As I look at the terrain - the topography, flora, and fauna - of my journey, and of his, I see a grand landscape between us. Millions of paths, an infinity of experiences and contours, that separate us. At the same time, they also connect us.

Before this morning, I could only imagine that 7 billion people is a bad thing. But as I contemplated my father's life, and mine, and the terrain between us, and that 7 billionth beating heart in the baby Filipino girl, I thought, "Hey - there's 7 billion paths being walked…"

What if we could share our experiences, illuminate the trails we see in front of us, teach each other the way we walk our paths? 

What if 7 billion of us could speak without fear about the terrain we see, and listen without prejudice to the adaptations we have developed to walk them?

Our options might open. Our eyes might open. 

Our hearts might open.

The (Meta)physics of Doubt

Dissipation or Redirection?

(Note 2: I wanted this post to show up on August, but the draft was dated March, so there it sat, back in among the March posts. I've now re-posted with an August date - sometimes this technology stuff gets a little confusing.)


(Note 1: I drafted this one in March of this year. August, as it turns out, has been less about effort and more about "being". So I figured now would be a good time to turn this one into a post!)

I've been working very hard lately - lots of long hours and exertion. I feel, in general, pretty good about this, in spite of how it sounds. I enjoy what I'm doing, and I am very grateful to be living a part of my life -- this part, right now -- in service to a big dream.

And yet, it's still "hard". I don't always know whether what I'm doing is making a difference. It's challenging to continue to exert yourself and then wonder whether it's worth it.

All the familiar kinds of self-doubt have emerged over the last several weeks.

"I'm not doing the right things."

"Nothing is working."

"I'm wasting time and money."

"I can't possibly pull this off."

Etc., etc., etc.

Now, as usual, I'm not satisfied to just "experience" these doubts and then "process" them and move on. Oh, no. The metaphysicist in me says, "Wait - there must be a message in this. Why am I going through this? What is its purpose?"

And my attention alighted upon Doubt itself. I have never really examined doubt - I had just struggled with it. What is Doubt? How does it work? In essence, I began to ponder the physics of Doubt.

And this morning, as I took a leisurely snooze-in, I think I made a little progress.

I was looking at doubt, and examining its effect. Well, says I, "effect on...what?"

It came to my awareness that doubt was affecting my intention, somewhat like the way friction affects motion. It was using the energy of my intentions, and diluting or decreasing the force of them.

OK, maybe this sounds obvious on the face of it. But I actually saw it as a vector of force that I was allowing to feed on, and that worked counter to, my intentions.

So then, of course, I had to look at Intention (because doubt itself was making me question the validity of my inquiry).

What the heck is Intention? On the one hand, an intention can be this very large, grandiose, "I'm going to execute this vision" kind-of-thing. On the other hand, it can be something as simple and small as, "I'm going to open my eyes now," or "I'm going to pay attention to my breathing."

And somewhere in the middle, "I'm going to get up, put on my running shoes, and go running...in the rain."

And I looked at intention somewhat carefully to see if "intention for the easy/possible" was structurally the same as "intention for the difficult/impossible". Were they really the same thing? I had to conclude that they were. It was really just a question of scale regarding the resources and knowledge needed. "Open my eyes" requires little resource. "Become President" requires a lot. But the actual functional role of "intention" is the same. So, to a (meta)physicist, the same forces, fields, and conditions should govern the operation and understanding of each.

A little deeper on intention, then. If this whole gamut, this whole range, qualified as "intention", what actually is Intention? What is the physics of intention? Intention has been called "focused attention". I think of it as "directed willpower". Note that there is a subtle difference between "directed willpower" and "applied willpower"; applied willpower implies that one is actually taking action. That's a second step, separate from the intention itself. That's the application of resources. But directed willpower implies both "potential energy" and "direction".

Notice also that there is a minimum "quantity" of potential energy that is required, even in the presence of sufficient resource (as in, I didn't go running in the rain, even though I certainly had capable shoes and plenty of rain to run in...).

What makes intention strong enough to "activate"? That is, to cause tangible change in the Universe? Still working on this one. But one thing was clear - doubt was "dissipating" what force existed within the intention.

With these perceptions in hand, I had another look at doubt.

My first impression was that doubt was dissipating my intention. It was "decompressing" it, reducing its voltage, its power, its potential for forward motion. And the odd thing was that the application of doubt was coming from me! So odd to see one part of myself gathering energy, creating the potential, building power, and then another part of myself venting off that energy, dissolving it, adding an "effect" to it that causes it to lose coherence.

I got up and started my day, satisfied that I had uncovered something important about doubt - "Doubt dissipates Intention".

Later, as I began to contemplate writing these insights down, I thought, OK, but is that the ONLY thing doubt is doing? Doubt has to have a purpose - a useful, evolutionarily valuable function, or we wouldn't have it. So what constructive role does it play?

I started to look at Doubt like "attitude adjustment thrusters" - pushing the Intention vector left or right, up or down, in little puffs of exertion. Properly applied, Doubt is a tool for redirection and adjustment. It takes just enough steam from the main thrusters to provide a moment for realignment through examination. And it doesn't require the application of external energy -- handily, it uses the energy that is already present. An excellent safeguard system.

Unfortunately, I suspect many of us don't use Doubt so constructively. We let Doubt establish itself, but somehow don't have the discipline to manage, monitor, and control its application. So it continues to fire, releasing the pressure in the Intention tank, firing wildly, pushing our Ship of Intention up, down, sideways, in a random and unproductive ways. Taking us off course while at the same time sapping us of "directed willpower".

Why is that, do you think? Is it simply a matter of training? Of discipline? I'm still working on it, but if you have ideas, I'd love to hear them.

The Most Intimate Thing We Do

Taking a Deep Breath

Over the past year or so, I've been learning a lot, and experiencing a lot, about breathing. It dawned on me that breathing is an extraordinarily intimate act.

Think about it... When you breathe, you take in random air molecules from all around you, through your nose, down your throat, and into your lungs, where they mingle with your insides - indeed, they become part of you. And you do this constantly. It never stops. When you exhale, you push what was, just seconds ago, part of your very blood out into the world.

So ethereal, this breathing thing, and yet so very, very messy and sanguinary. We allow our blood to touch the world in every breath. It's pretty spectacular, when you think about it.

(I'll also admit that it can also seem a little gross, and more than a little terrifying, when you think about it this way.)

I want to go a little bit deeper with this examination, too. It's not just any old air molecule that is entering your body. It's an air molecule that has been profoundly affected by the environment in which it is floating. It's been zapped by cosmic rays, perhaps. Most certainly by a cell phone signal or two. It's vibrating with the heat reflected off the pavement, or the trees, or the foreheads of the people in the room.

Each molecule we bring into such intimate contact with our inner physical being is aquiver with the energies present all around us, and to greater or lesser degrees, all the energy that is radiating at all the frequencies from all directions. Poor little molecule, so profoundly bopped and bonked and spun about...and in it goes.

What happens when it gets there? Of course, it carries all those vibrations with it, right into the inner sanctum of the physical. Makes you long for some good, clean, natural fresh air, doesn't it?

The other side is just as interesting. When we exhale, the molecules we release carry with them the vibrations that are inside of us. So all the frequencies that are generated by the complex interactions of our functioning selves are present in each exhalation.

Interesting to think about what makes up those vibrations. Our physical state, to be sure. But also, all the rest of us. Our moods. Our thoughts. Our dreams. Our pettiness and our valor. All present in every exhalation. Perhaps the instantaneous energy signature of all of that is what our soul looks like in that very moment.

Are we exhaling our "soul profile", written in the energy signature of our breath?

If so, what we are inside ourselves fundamentally impacts the world outside of ourselves. And what is outside affects what we are becoming.

What are you inhaling?

Perhaps more important, what are you exhaling?

The mystical traditions place great power in the breath. The power to create, destroy, rebalance, cleanse, heal...the list goes on and on.

With this perspective, I have to agree. And recently I've begun to experience this power directly. As I explore the cross-over between deep physics, spirituality, and healing, I sense (and sometimes can manipulate) the power of breath.

It's crazy cool!

We can argue over the magnitude of the impact, to be sure. Perhaps someday we'll understand how to measure it all. I'll be excited when that happens, but also a little sad when that mystery is solved.

Until then, I continue to explore, and have no doubt that the breath has a powerful and intimate capacity to connect us to the world, and the world to us.